Gone By Morning
by No Holds
Summary: Ellie's got a thing about friends and promises, but she manages to break a few anyway. Elsewhere, the head firefly's trying as hard as she can to keep a promise that hinges on a teenage girl in a shopping mall. Run in parallel with Back By Morning (/s/10154323/1/Back-By-Morning)
1. The Previous Evening (Prologue)

I fell asleep that night with the same sense of useless, sourceless sadness that had been clinging to me for weeks, that made me feel like such a _child_, curling up around my pillow and not sleeping. Boo hoo, Ellie's sad about her friend. Big deal. Get over it.

I woke up that night with teeth at my neck and adrenaline in my veins and a tremor (and a knife) in my fingers, breathing too hard, half in a nightmare.

I spent the night laughing and shouting and almost crying (But not crying. We weren't that kind of sappy).

I met up with Riley, then I made up with Riley, then I made out with Riley.

It was a little bit awesome.

We both made promises we probably couldn't keep, but we'd been friends for a long time, and we'd made and kept unkeepable promises before. We'd fought before, too, (Not like this, never like this) and it had always worked out fine, and maybe now it would be the same but _with_ kissing and _without_ the military.

Or the fireflies.

We promised each other futures, because we'd given up our own. I didn't know what that future would be, or how we'd get there, but we'd promised, and I have a thing about best friends (Maybe more then friends?) and promises (If you've got them, keep them).

Whatever the future was, I was glad she'd be in it. No matter how teenage it sounded (It sounded really, _painfully_ teenage), I'd missed her really bad, and I kinda needed her.

I didn't need the fireflies. Or the boarding school, or Marlene or any of it, just… her. Her eyes and her soft skin and her warm arms and her sharp smiles and the way she laughed (I sound like such a dumbass adolescent, this is embarrassing).

And I just stood there, kiss growing stale on my lips, feeling young and stupid and butterflies-in-the-stomach nervous, looking her in the eyes, my heart crawling up my throat to take the place my breath occupies.

I don't know how long we'd been standing there in the mall (her mall), listening to trashy dance music (her trashy dance music) and not talking, but I finally force words around the knot in my throat, breaking the anxious silence with

"What do we do now?" It sounds very small and very scared and I almost hate myself for it.

She smiles. "We'll figure it out."

And I smile back and I think she might be right. We've figured it out so far. And this strange sort of comfort wraps around me, like I haven't felt in _years,_ like somehow it's all going to be okay.

And then something shifts, and suddenly it's our mall and our trashy dance music, and the sing-song "I got you"s drift through the air like words neither of us wants to say (too sappy, too soon). Words neither of us needs to say. I understand.

We have each other. And we'll figure it out.


	2. The First Morning (Chapter 1)

My wrist aches, the bone-deep gnaw of infection, too warm and under-the-skin-itchy. I feel every heartbeat in the bite, my pulse reminding me I don't have much time left.

I had been dumfounded. Then I had been angry. Then I had been desperate.

_Now_ I'm curled into Riley's side with my head on her shoulder, and she's resting her cheek on my head, and I'm pretending I can't feel her tears in my hair.

"Riley?" I ask, and I can feel my voice break, and I _hate_ it.

"Yeah?"

I almost tell her how _lost_ I'm feeling, but I catch the confession in my throat. No need to be a downer.

"I'm bored."

I can feel her smile against me, and then she's standing, pulling me with her. "Come on. There's a great view of the sunset from the roof"

I don't mention that it's barely past noon. I just follow her. Somehow in the course of a morning the mall has lost all of its magic, all of its wonder. The lights are flickery and dim now, and the stores all look broken down. Even the posters boasting of far-off places seem faded and false.

When we pass through a clothing store I lash out at a manikin, shoving it as hard as I can, feeling nothing as it topples to the ground, tears pricking at my eyes. I aim a kick at the plastic torso for good measure.

_Why us?_

I can feel Riley's eyes on my back, feel the pity there, and when she puts a hand on my shoulder the tenderness grates. I shrug her off.

_How are you handling this so well?_

"What are we doing, Riley?" I can hear the angry slant to my words.

She looks at me, and it's not _pity_ in her eyes, it's an affection that's so raw it makes my breath catch in my throat. My anger dies, and I feel childish again, the dented manikin on the floor a monument to my immaturity.

"We're going to the roof. Come on."

I turn to follow her again, grabbing hold of her hand (I'm careful not to choose the bitten one. It's easier to pretend if I can't see her bite).

Riley falters for a second, then squeezes my fingers and keeps walking, hand locked with mine. I think one or both of us is holding on too tight, but it helps make the mall seem a little brighter, a little less empty.

We wander for most of the day, walking slowly through places long since explored. We finally make it to the roof sometime in the early evening. The air's soft and cool, the breeze gentle, the fading sun warm.

Riley was right about one thing. The view from up here is nice.

I take a seat on the edge of the roof and she slides down next to me, wrapping am arm around my shoulder.

"Is it weird that I'm still nervous sitting this close to the edge of the roof?" Riley kicks her feet against the wall.

I laugh.

"Nah. You always were afraid of everything."

She shoots me a look, and I turn to meet her eyes, and suddenly we're almost touching, so I lean forwards and close the distance.

Despite it all, kissing her sends a happy thrill through me, and I smile against Riley's lips.

When we come up for air, Riley sighs and looks out over the city, the moment breaking like surface tension.

The silence that follows lends itself to thought, and if there's one thing I'm scared of, it's thinking too hard about what's coming.

"Well, Firefly girl,"

Riley turns away from the skyline, looking me in the eyes, and it's a little too close and a little too intense. I look away, heat rising in my cheeks.

"How's it been? Holding up to your expectations?"

She smiles, looking back out at the skyline as dusk falls. I feel her shrug against me.

"It's had its low points. You can't deny that view, though."

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding, and a bizarre contentment settles over me. The wind is a little cool, but Riley's warm beside me, and the view of the sunset from here is, as promised, spectacular, sun catching in the buildings around us and lighting the glass like oil slicks.

When the sun slips past the horizon, Riley lies back against the tarry roof, and I follow her lead, resting my head on her stomach. The stars are just starting to appear, and (Expect for one, tiny detail that I'm trying very hard not to think about) I'm content. The roof is still warm from the day's sun. I finally get to kiss my best friend. The view really is pretty nice.

I feel her stomach rise and fall in a sigh.

"What are we gonna do now?"

I smile, lean up on one elbow to look her in the eye.

"We'll figure it out."


	3. The Second Morning (Chapter 2)

My wrist gets worse overnight. When I touch it, pus seeps through the cracking scab. The skin around the bite is bright red and shiny and hot to the touch. All of me feels warm, flush with fever, my expiration date stamped on my forearm and throbbing with every heartbeat.

When I show Riley, she looks at her own bite, clean and scabbing over, and I can't meet her eyes. I'd heard that the Turn happens faster for some people, but I sort of thought that we'd Turn within seconds of each other, with time for nothing but last words.

"I won't leave you behind, you know."

I glance up at Riley, pretend there aren't tears in her eyes, blink away the tears in mine.

"If you Turn first, I mean. I won't leave." Her voice is dangerously close to breaking.

"Riley, you are _such_ a sap."

I force a smile and she wrinkles her nose and shoves at me (with her good hand. Neither of us wants to remind the other of what's coming), and I push myself upright and offer her a hand to help her up (my good hand, naturally).

"_Such_ a gentleman." She says, and grabs my hand, pulling herself up and into my arms.

Then we're hugging, and it's so surreal to be able to touch her like this without worrying. Without wondering if I'm taking advantage, revealing too much, without wondering if she knows. I tighten my arms around her shoulders and bury my tears in her neck, and we stand there for a long time, speechless.

Riley laughs, pushing me away to arms length. "Not the most romantic first date."

I laugh back (a little watery, maybe, but it'll have to do). "I was thinking more long walks on the beach and less infected."

She's looking at me, right in the eyes, and gnawing on her lip (I don't know if she picked up the habit from me or vice-versa, but it's ingrained blood-deep in us both), and I have to look away. Her eyes are too intense, sometimes.

I can feel heat in my cheeks, and I know it's not the infection.

"Ellie."

I glance up. She sounds like she's _planning_ something. That tone of voice is never a good sign.

"Will you go on a date with me?" There's this _light_ in her eyes, a mischievous slant to her mouth.

I flap at my face, feigning a swoon. "Oh, Riley, a date, golly-"

She smacks me on the shoulder, laughing.

"Is that a yes?"

And I nod, and she grabs me by the hand.

"Come on."

Then we're off. I spend a lot of my time being dragged around by Riley.

There are worse people to be dragged around by.

When we get to the food court, Riley sits me down at a rusty table, the paint chipped and peeling, and presses my hand to the tabletop.

"Stay here."

"Riley, what are we doing?"

"Stay here." She says, and then she runs off, with a glance and a 'stay' hand gesture waved in my direction. I hear her whistling long after I lose sight of her. I guess we don't have to worry about attracting anything with the noise, anymore.

I wait at the old table maybe ten minutes, and then restlessness gets the better of me.

_I don't have much time left. I don't want to spend it just sitting around. _

The thought is jarring and intrusive and I shake it off, wandering around the food court to distract myself (I'm too sweaty, and even the walk leaves me winded, but I don't think about why). The stalls are old and beat-up, but if I close my eyes, I can picture it full of people, bustling with life and activity. It's better then thinking about the Other Thing.

Imagining's not as fun without Riley narrating.

When she's still not back ten minutes later, I fish around _inside_ the stalls, find some old cans of peaches and granola bars at a place that used to sell sandwiches.

"Hello, I'd like to buy these."

I put the food on the counter, trying to pretend someone's there to ring up the purchase, but it's hard without Riley there, and I just wind up feeling stupid.

"Whatever." I scoop the food off the counter and dash back to the table when I hear whistling in the distance.

"Hey." Riley comes back with a plastic bag in one hand and a tiny smile on her face.

"Hey." I put the food on the table. "I found lunch."

"I thought I told you to stay here."

"Here is relative. You could have meant the whole mall for all I know."

I'm rewarded by a laugh, and when I look up to meet Riley's eyes she shakes her head.

"Close your eyes."

I make a face, but I close my eyes, because when Riley gets an idea she tends to latch on (That's what got us into this mess in the first place).

I hear rustling, a curse.

"Are you sure you don't need my eyes open? You sound like you could use some help."

"I'm fine."

There's a muted click, and I smell smoke.

"Are you _burning _something?"

I hear Riley sit down across from me, the ancient table creaking in protest.

"Open your eyes."

Riley's set the table, damp paper plates and plastic cutlery and a candle guttering between us (It's an eye-ball shaped Halloween candle, but it's the thought that counts).

The food I found is split evenly, unwrapped granola bars and slimy peaches sitting in the centre of each plate (I'm nauseous rather then hungry, and the realization makes anxiety gnaw at my stomach where hunger should be).

She sits down across from me, smiling, and picks up her knife and fork, slicing off a piece of granola bar.

"Lovely restaurant." I say. "How far in advance did you have to make reservations?"

Riley laughs, and goddamn, talking is so _easy_ with her, and I _missed_ this. This whole mall thing was worth it, I missedher so _much_.

We eat shitty food and talk about everything but the future (well, I talk about space, but we don't talk about _our_ future), until the candle burns itself out, and then Riley leans across the table to kiss me.

She tastes like peaches and sweat and dust, and I kiss her back, and it's so_ novel_ and so _nice,_ just to be able to touch her. When we get up I hold her hand, sticking close, because now that I _can_ touch her I'm going to keep out separation to a minimum.

We wander without looking for anything.

We find something, though- a store room with a door that locks, and sleeping bags inside, and I know that this is where we'll spend our last days.

Riley sits me down on a sleeping bag and rubs circles into my back and tells me how _warm_ I feel, and can she get me any water, and am I _okay,_ and I shut her up with a kiss and tell her that I don't want to spend my last day talking about my fever.

Instead I curl into her side and run my fingers through her hair, wrap my arm around her shoulder, and she gets it.

Somehow, another day has slipped by, and panic spikes through me when I look at the ticking time bomb on my wrist. I think about the sunset last night, about how I'll probably never see another.

I fall asleep on Riley's shoulder, letting her gentle hands rub the tension out of by back and the fever out of my blood.


	4. The Third Morning (Chapter 3)

My wrist feels better when I wake up in the middle of the night. The bone-deep ache is faded and distant, and the _lack_ wakes me up in a cold sweat, the fever broken like a wave. I'm not warm anymore- I'm shivering, teeth chattering together, hands shaking.

I don't know if this is supposed to happen when you get infected- maybe it's just the next stage- but I feel better. I feel alive again, freezing and clammy and shivering like a junkie days from a fix, but better, somehow.

I curl into Riley, who's as warm as she's always been, this solid, comforting heat at my back.

She's like summer sunlight, like a blanket in the wintertime. She leeches the shivers out of me, and I sleep deeply.

When I wake again, Riley's warmth has become something malicious. Something evil. There's heat in every fiber of her- she's fever-hot all over, and her breaths are slow and ragged and she's shivering, shaking so hard I think she might tear herself apart.

I grab her by the shoulders, try to keep her still, keep her from hurting herself, and it feels so strange to be the one protecting her, like some unwritten law has been violated.

Even through her Jacket, Riley's skin burns. Whatever fever I had is tenfold in her.

"Riley?"

She doesn't respond, and I feel tears spring to my eyes, feel the inevitable crashing down on me all at once.

"Riley, please, I can't lose you like this."

It's a plea and it's also a goodbye, and my heart sinks to the pit of my stomach when she doesn't respond except to keep shivering.

"Please."

My voice is no louder then a whisper, and I feel so small and so goddamn useless, and I shake her by the shoulders, desperate and needy and helpless.

Riley's eyes slide open. She takes this deep, shuddering breath.

"Riley?"

Now I _am_ crying, sobbing like a little kid, and I watch her regain consciousness slowly, like a swimmer breaking the surface.

"Ellie?"

She sounds so slow, so confused. It's not like the Riley I know at all. That Riley is fast and clever and bright as the sun.

This- this is not that girl. This Riley is muted and bleary-eyed, and she's reaching for me blindly with this almost childish want, and I hug her back and cry into her.

At least she's stopped shaking.

"Ellie, what's wrong?"

I shake my head, lean back, blink my tears away.

"Nothing. Bad dream."

I don't want to ruin what time we have left.

She looks me in the eyes, and _there's_ the Riley I know, the Riley that won't take my shit for even a second.

"You were gone, Riley. For a second there you were…"

My voice chokes off with this throat-closing sob that I can't hold in no matter how hard I try. I can't even speak right.

She laughs, this sad, watery chuckle.

"I'm not leaving you without a goodbye." She says, and when she kisses me, I know it's as close to a goodbye as I'm going to get.

Her lips are too warm. It's like kissing the sun.

I wipe my eyes- I've been doing too much of that, recently.

"This isn't really how I pictured it going down. We were supposed to get old, you know?"

She looks at me, the last sleep falling from her eyes.

"You thought about us?"

I choke, all childish fantasy.

"Well, I mean-"

"It's okay. I did too. I-"

She cuts off the rest of her sentence with a strange fear in her eyes, deer-in-the-headlights. She was always, _always _stronger then this. Her weakness terrifies me.

"We were just- we were supposed to have more then _this_." She holds up her hand, the bite puckering at the edges, the scab curling in to show a bright white growing through her skin, like moss, like fungus, like plague.

"Yeah." I grab her hand and run my fingers over the bite and that's a goodbye in itself.

Riley laughs.

"Oops, right?" and that's a goodbye, too.

I lean as far into her side as I can, even though she's too warm, and she makes this noise, like I've hurt her, and I jerk away like she's burned me, and already Riley's shaking her head.

"It's okay. You didn't hurt me. It's just-"

She coughs, this wet, horrible sound with a scream on the edges of it, too close to the sounds those things make for comfort.

"I'm just a little sore, is all."

She sounds more then a little sore, but I don't say that. I say

"Are we talking like, paper cut sore, or lemon juice in a paper cut sore?"

"Closer to just a paper cut." She says, and pulls me back into her side.

We just sit and talk, pressed as close to each other as our skin will allow, and everything she says is a goodbye, and everything I say is an apology.

After a while, she starts to cough every couple of minutes, a whole-body cough that rattles through her like death. She always recovers fast enough though.

Except this time she doesn't.

She just coughs, and coughs, and the hand that isn't wrapped around me goes up to her mouth and comes away bloody, and her shoulders are shaking and I'm trying _so hard_ not to cry.

"I'm okay." She says, once she's caught her breath.

"I'm okay."

Her voice is so shaky. There's this tremor in it, and she was always supposed to be the strong one, and with her like this I feel so lost.

I don't know what I should do, so I just do what I _want _to do, and pull her into a kiss that tastes like blood and fever. When we break apart, she takes a deep, shuddering breath and says

"I'm glad I got to kiss you before-"

I nod.

Riley Blinks, slow and hazy, like she's trying to remember something important.

"I'm just- I'm getting kinda tired, so I'm gonna lie down, now."

She doesn't sound like herself at all, lying down with stiff, clumsy movements that are so separate from Riley, graceful Riley, infallible Riley.

I lie down with her, resting my head on her chest, feeling her lungs cough themselves apart every few minutes.

"I'm glad too." I say, and she drapes an arm over my back.

"Hey, I might not make it to tomorrow, and if I don't-"

I shake my head, cut her off. She lies there, for a moment, quiet, and I'm afraid I've lost her before she says

"Tell me about how it was supposed to go. Tell me how it was supposed to happen."

I nod. "Close your eyes." I say, trying to be like her, because nothing was ever so comforting as she was.

"We were supposed to leave the QZ- just go live outside, you know? Find a forest, or a suburb, somewhere with plenty of wildlife and no infected, or hunters, or soldiers, or Fireflies, or any of that."

I can feel her breathing slowing down.

"And we- we were going to build a cabin, just big enough for us, and fill it with all our favourite books."

"Music, too?" She asks, and she sounds so needy, so small.

"Yeah." I whisper.

"Yeah, we'd live near a city, with a music shop, and we'd fix up an old stereo and listen to all the music we'd ever want."

She's coal-hot against me, burning up from the inside out.

"We'd have a dog, and he'd sleep on our feet in the winter, to keep warm, and the bed would always be too small, and you'd always hog the blankets, and we'd sit in front of the fire and read every night."

I realize I'm crying, not sobbing, not sniffling, there are just tears rolling down my cheeks and onto Riley's shirt.

"We'd always have enough to hunt, enough to eat, you'd teach me how to use a bow and I'd teach you how to play poker, and we'd have a horse, and we'd both live until we were wrinkly and old."

I can feel her falling asleep under me, breath slowing, and her words are slurred.

"What's the horse's name?"

"I'd let you name it." I say. She nods.

"It'd be big, and brown." She says, like she's reciting from a script. "Not like Princess."

I nod like I understand. "What would you call it?"

Riley pauses to think, and she sounds very far away when she finally says "Callus."

And she sounds even further away when she says "How would we die?"

My throat closes up for a second, and it takes a couple deep breaths to continue.

"It would be summer time. It'd be so warm, and sunny, and it would smell like spring. The dog would sit by our feet, and we would sit next to each other on the front porch, all grey and old, and we'd just drift away. Like falling asleep."

She sighs, and it's half contentment and half death rattle.

"Like falling asleep." She echoes, and I can feel her do just that beneath me, just as I can feel the farewell in the words.

And then I fall asleep on her chest, even though she's too warm, even though her coughing makes it hard to get comfortable. Even though she's going to be dangerous by morning.

"Sorry." I whisper, and there's a goodbye in that, too.

**A/N-**

I'm going to write a slightly too long shout out section right here, so feel free to skip over it if you want.

First off- everyone who comments and leaves favorites, you're fantastic and amazing

Second, to the wonderful people on 8tracks who keep making good fandom-specific writing mixes, especially River Swelling (both sides), which I'm going to put links to right now.  
/herrenjaller/river-swelling-side-a  
/herrenjaller/river-swelling-side-b

Third, to the writing fairies for abandoning me this chapter. Seriously. Writing this one felt like pulling teeth. Hope it came out alright.

I think that's it for now.  
Best wishes.


	5. The Fourth Morning (Chapter 4)

My wrist is better when I wake up.

Damnably, unfairly better. The skin is too-warm, still, and it leaks clear fluid when I press on it, but it's scabbing over.

_Healing,_ somehow. Like a great practical joke on the part of the universe. Millions of people in the world, and I take longer to turn then anyone else.

Millions of people, and I have to be one of the ones to watch other someone else turn first.

This didn't feel poetic.

I've been pushed off of Riley in my sleep, and when I look over to see how she's doing, my heart drops into my stomach.

She's jerking back and forth, eyelids flickering, mouth hanging open.

She's making this _sound,_ halfway between a groan and a scream, really low and really quiet, and it makes my hair stand on end.

"Riley?" My voice catches in my throat, and I hate how _weak_ it makes me sound.

Maybe the worst part of this is that Riley was always the one I went to when there was something wrong, when I couldn't handle the world. She always had a way of making everything else fade away. She was intense, bright. It was always impossible to look away from her.

I realize that I am thinking of her in the past tense, and that makes the tears in my eyes spill over, pulls sobs from the back of my raw throat.

There's a bloody foam at the corner of Riley's mouth, and when I go to wipe it away she's furnace-hot, almost too warm to touch, and I know I should keep my hands away from her mouth, but fuck it. I'm dead walking anyway.

Bitten.

A death sentence.

Just one that's dragging on a little too long.

"Riley" I say, again, because I feel like I should say _something_ to her, even if she doesn't know. Even if she can't hear.

"I think-" My crying makes my voice crack, and _goddamnit,_ she deserves a better then this. Better then _me._

She always deserved more then I could give her.

More then some _asshole_ who can't even give a fucking eulogy.

"Riley." I start again, blinking hard, grabbing her hand. "I think-"

Her fingers claw at my skin, tearing my palm open.

I ignore it as best I can.

This is the least I can do.

"I think I might have been in love with you."

Her hands still, give a squeeze of my fingers, weak, barely-there.

It feels like victory.

I look down at Riley, and see her eyes open, thick with sleep and unfocused.

She frowns. There's such pain on her face, and she works her mouth for maybe five minuets. I start to think she's choking, but then-

"I think maybe I loved you too."

And when I go to kiss her, she _screams_, whole body convulsing, face twisting in pain, and she grits her teeth, still stronger then me after all of this, and she says

"You have to kill me."

She's not crying.

Even now, Riley is steel.

"I will."

She pulls me closer, and I can feel her muscles shaking.

"Promise me."

I can see panic in her eyes, hear her voice cracking.

"I promise."

And then I _do_ kiss her, because I know it's going to be the last time. She slumps under me, dead weight, and I'm crying and holding her to my chest and gulping these deep, shaky breaths, shuddering with sobs that rattle through me like summer storms.

I know the next time she wakes up, she won't be Riley anymore. I grab her gun and hold it with hands too shaky to pull the trigger.

"Goodbye," I say, and press the gun against her head.

"Goodbye, I love you, goodbye." I say it over, and over, finger on the trigger.

I lock the door to the room Riley is in, unloading her gun and throwing the magazine as far away as I can, not watching where it lands.

_Useless. Weak._

I press my back to the door and wrap my arms around my knees and cry until I can barely breathe, until my chest is burning and my throat is sore and my eyes ache.

"I'm sorry." I whisper to the door.

I lean my head against the steel and close my eyes and wait.


End file.
